Karla Dodds’ ‘overloaded’ car hit a lamppost and flipped over on the way to a house party.

A drunk barmaid who crammed seven people into her tiny car caused a tragic crash which claimed the life of one young passenger who was hanging out of the window.

Karla Dodds, 25, was “well over” the drink-drive limit when she suggested she’d give six friends a lift to a house party in her Hyundai i10, a court heard. Four people were squeezed into the back seats, while another person reluctantly climbed into the boot of the hatchback, reports the Mirror.

Truman Hub, 22, had his head hanging out of the rear passenger window when Dodds lost control and smashed into a lamppost in North Tyneside in Tyne and Wear. The impact caused the car to flip, crushing the young man and leaving him fatally injured.

Newcastle Crown Court heard Dodds, of Links Avenue, Whitley Bay, confessed to causing Truman’s death by careless driving while over the drink-drive limit, but denies causing death by dangerous driving and is standing trial, reports ChronicleLive.

Andrew Espley, prosecuting, said: “The prosecution case is that Karla Dodds caused the death of Truman Hub by driving dangerously in the early hours of the morning on Sunday November 20 2022. In brief, Karla Dodds had been out at work the previous day, the Saturday night, as a barmaid in a local pub.

“She then went out drinking in Whitley Bay from 11.30pm, driving her car from home to the pub.” Dodds spent a few hours in the Havana nighclub, in Whitley Bay and then picked up six others to take them to a house party in Shiremore. At this point, she was well over the legal limit for alcohol for driving.”

Mr Espley said one man got in the boot of the vehicle and four got into the back of the car, including Truman, who was from North Shields and his girlfriend. He added: “He was hanging out of the rear passenger side window as the car headed towards a roundabout on the A191.

“We say the defendant was driving too fast in the circumstances. The actual speed was not, of itself, grossly excessive but was too fast in all the circumstances.

“The driver’s side of the car hit a lamppost on the driver’s side as she came off the roundabout, heading to a fairly sharp left. The collision itself caused the car to turn over onto its passenger side, crushing Truman Hub, who was still hanging out of the window.

“The car then turned on the roof, coming to a rest on the driver’s side, by now a short distance from the point of collision.”

Jurors were told Dodds has pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving while over the alcohol limit. Mr Espley said: “She accepts her driving caused the death of Truman Hub but she denies her driving was dangerous.”

The prosecutor said the manner of Dodd’s driving was not the sole cause of Truman’s death and said he is unlikely to have died had he not been hanging out of the window when Dodds crashed. But he added: “We say the car rolled over because of the dangerous way Karla Dodds was driving.

“She was well over the limit for alcohol, the car was overloaded, there were seven people in it, one of them was in the boot and on any view she knew her car was overloaded and there was someone hanging out of her rear passenger window.”

The court also heard that the man who was travelling in the boot, who is more than six foot tall, said he entered the boot reluctantly. He said he felt a bump then “everything seemed to spin or rotate” and he banged his head. He was helped out afterwards and lost consciousness for a time.

Mr Espley stated that another passenger said Dodds had offered to drive them and said she’d had a few drinks but was “ok to drive” and he told her to have some water. He said she was driving too fast and said he told her to slow down and turned the music down at one point, but she ignored him and turned the music back up. He said he also told her she had “far too many people in the car”.

He was also unconcious for a time after the crash, then heard Dodds shouting: “We’ve got to go, we’ve got to go” before seeing she and her friend had left the scene. He said he then saw Truman, who had been sitting up, fall back and people started doing CPR but they couldn’t find a pulse.

Mr Espley said: “We say it would have been obvious to Karla Dodds something had happened to Truman Hub, probably that he was seriously injured and she left the scene anyway with her friend.”

Truman’s girlfriend claimed that there were four people in the back of the car and none were wearing seatbelts but those in the front were. She said the music was “really loud” and people were singing along. She said Truman put his head out of the window to feel the wind and she grabbed him and told him to “stop acting like an idiot and get your head back in”.

Mr Espley said Dodds “must have been aware” Truman was hanging out of the window, but she says she wasn’t. Prosecutors say she ought to have been aware of it, if she wasn’t, as she had responsibility for the safety of her passengers.

The court heard Dodds was nearly twice the drink-drive limit almost four hours after the collision. When later interviewed by police, she said the “whole thing was a bit of a blur” and she didn’t know Truman was fatally injured when she left and was “in shock”. Asked if she thought it was dangerous to have seven people in a car designed for five people, she said: “Yes I absolutely agree with that and I apologise”.

Dodds denies causing death by dangerous driving and the trial continues.